Nineteen fifty two was, of course, the year that the Queen took to the throne.

But it was also a year that witnessed some other events that are still having a major effect on our daily lives.

Manchester’s Arndale Centre may have been built in the 1970s but the first steps towards its creation were taken in 1952.

It was then that the Arndale Property Trust bought the land north of Market Street that would eventually become the landmark shopping mall.

The trust was the creation of Yorkshiremen Arnold Hagenbach and Sam Chippindale, who identified the site’s potential even if its redevelopment only received official consideration with a 1968 public enquiry.

Most of the Rochdale canal was officially closed by Act of Parliament in 1952. The Ferranti Mk1, also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer, was also making its mark. The Atomic Energy Research Establishment – which took delivery of its Mk1 in autumn 1952 – was among those ordering the world’s first commercially available general purpose electronic computer.

Over in Warrington, the Unilever subsidiary Crosfield created its new washing powder in 1952. The first boxes of Surf hit the shelves that year, to be followed by millions more.

And across Greater Manchester, 1952 gave birth to firms that are still with us today and still affecting our daily lives.

*Case Study: Wheatley Plastics

While Queen Elizabeth was still a princess, Albert Wheatley met an engineering friend who was looking for a manufacturer of buttons for a raincoat that was about to go on the market.

Wheatley thought he could do the job. He won the work, created the moulds, bought the machinery and, in 1952, began button production in the garage of his house at Heaton Moor, Stockport.

The raincoat in question was the massive-selling Pacamac, which became a huge success and proved Wheatley’s judgement to be correct.

After three years, the volume of work persuaded him to move production from his garage to Reynolds Mill in Stockport’s Newbridge Lane.

Soon, toys, packaging and electronic components joined buttons as the Wheatley machines were busy meeting orders from all over the UK.

As the Swinging Sixties hit their stride, Wheatley Plastics found itself meeting massive demand from Cheadle-based James Galt and Co to produce the toymaker’s building set Playplax.

After a 30-year gap, the company is now back manufacturing Playplax, which has been revived by a Hampshire-based toy company.

According to those who knew him, Wheatley took an unorthodox approach to business.

He took very little money out of the company, never borrowed from the bank, drove a mere 2,000 miles a year in search of business and only raised prices when the firm started making a loss.

When Ian Bell agreed to buy the company from Wheatley in 1972, a new era of 24-hour production was ushered in. Productivity increased and the company invested as much available cash as possible to stockpile materials to combat the ravages of escalating 1970s inflation.

Cheap labour costs in Asia led to much toy production moving abroad in the 1980s and 1990s but Wheatley Plastics continued to thrive.

Automotive parts and polystyrene products ensured continued success.

Rod Harper arrived in the mid-1980s, became sales manager and eventually managing director before buying the company from Bell in 1990.

Following a management buy-out in 2011, Gary Knight became the new managing director. He is confident that sales in the year to May 31 will be £560,000 – a 15-20% increase on last year.

Wheatley died in the 1980s, with Bell a regular at his bedside.

And Bell, now 75, believes that although much has changed since the early garage days, much remains similar to 60 years ago.

He said: “Of course, the machines that are used now are far more modern, more automated.

"There is a better cooling system for the factory and the whole place is a more attractive place to be.’’

Gary Knight, who arrived at the firm as a tool setter 15 years ago, added: “Things have certainly changed from how things were decades ago.

“Nowadays, issues such as health and safety and other personnel matters have risen in importance.

“But in some ways things have returned to how they were.

“From the 1980s, much of the toy industry went to the Far East as it was labour intensive and the UK could not compete on costs.

“But it is steadily coming back as British manufacturing is making a comeback.”